MG swimmers in pair of meets

With the meet schedule in full swing, the Mount Gilead Barracuda Swim Team traveled to Bucyrus on June 21 to take on the White Sharks.

“This is a good meet for us — Bucyrus isn’t a large team, but most of their kids swim for Y all year,” said coach Dina Snow. “Some of their 12-13 year old girls are extremely fast. We pulled out the win thanks to the number of boys on our team and the older swimmers.”

Several swimmers also improved their times by several seconds, including Gavin Robinson, Tatum Neal, Michaela McGill, Connor Robinson, Sammie West, Samantha Sellers, Kasey Fiant and William West.

Later in the week, the swimmers got into their best Island mood as they competed in the Colonel Crawford Hawaiian Invitational on June 24.

“This meet is a fundraiser and the age groups are changed so swimmers are in different categories than they usually swim. This works well for the 11 year olds because they go back to doing 25s, but the 14 year olds aren’t happy because they have to move up with the oldest group and do 100s,” said Snow.

The team ended up with the first runner-up trophy but was disappointed not to receive the Aloha team spirit award.

“The kids went all out on dressing up and cheering, so I am not sure why they weren’t chosen. All in all, it was a fun day for them and the weather was perfect,” said Snow.

Top three finishers in each event earned medals. Luke Fraizer earned gold in the 25 breast, as did the 10-11 boys free relay (Fraizer, Hawke Littell, Niles Bush and Nate Rabun), and Nate Rabun, 25 free.

Silver medalists were the 15-18 boys medley and free relays (Logan Conrad, Evan Zmuda, Casey Conrad and Gavin Robinson); Logan Conrad in the 100 free; Hawke Littell in the 25 fly; Joel Conrad in the 50 fly; Evan Zmuda in the 200 free and 100 breast; and Casey Conrad in the 100 back.